Mr. Steele and the Irrelevant RNC

The Republican chairman is nowhere to be seen as the party prepares for gains in Congress. That suits most people just fine.

By

Fred Barnes

Updated Oct. 18, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele is the missing person of the midterm election. Instead of cable news appearances and debates with Democratic counterpart Tim Kaine, Mr. Steele has spent the past month leading a "Fire Pelosi" bus tour across the country.

His small role in the campaign, highly unusual for a party chairman, is matched by the scaled back effort the RNC has mounted in 2010. And no one is happier than Mr. Steele's many Republican detractors, glad to see he's attracting little attention from the national media.

Since Mr. Steele was elected chairman last year, the RNC has raised almost $153.7 million, roughly $90 million less than in 2006. It has aired only a few TV ads and its get-out-the-vote (GOTV) drive is considerably less ambitious than in previous midterm elections.

ENLARGE

Michael Steele
Associated Press

Yet Republicans, including Mr. Steele, appear satisfied with the division of labor in the campaign. What the RNC isn't doing, well-financed outside groups like Americans for Prosperity and the Republican Governor's Association (RGA) are. Mr. Steele's bus tour doesn't interfere. Exploiting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's unpopularity, it has drawn largely favorable coverage from local and regional media.

This improvised arrangement is entirely fortuitous. The so-called independent expenditure groups were established to counter campaign spending on behalf of Democrats by liberal groups, particularly the Service Employees International Union, the AFL-CIO and MoveOn.org. They also aimed to offset the fund-raising advantage (now 1.5 to 1) of Democratic candidates.

The need to bail out the RNC arose last year after it quickly ran through $22.8 million and had trouble replenishing its war chest. Reliable donors were turned off by Mr. Steele's overexposure in the media, his insistence on making paid speeches as chairman, and statements that put him at odds with other Republican leaders.

The RNC brought in $9.7 million in September, $4 million short of its goal. This compares with $11.2 million raised last month by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), which supports House candidates. And the RGA, led by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, raised $31 million in July, August and September.

Many congressional Republicans and governors no longer trust Mr. Steele as their spokesman. They tend to work around the RNC rather than engage Mr. Steele. He does have supporters, and he has recruited an experienced staff. But his dismissal of Rush Limbaugh on CNN as an "entertainer" and other statements have stirred criticism.

Earlier this year, Mr. Steele said he doubted Republicans would capture the House in the midterm election, adding that he wasn't sure they were ready to govern. More recently, he's limited his media interviews and avoided gaffes.

Mr. Barbour, among others, has complained about the RNC's inability to fund a nationwide ground game to spur voter turnout. "We have to come up with about $10 million that normally would have been pushed into the governors' races in various directions, largely through state parties," he told reporters last month.

Outside groups are also funding GOTV programs. In California, Republican state chairman Ron Naehring has expanded the party's turnout program with financial help from the RGA. And gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman is paying for a ground game of her own, one that should also help other Republican candidates.

In Ohio, state chairman Kevin DeWine is desperate for RNC support. The state party was promised $1.1 million from the committee but has received only $566,900. And that, Mr. DeWine said in a letter to Mr. Steele last week, "simply pales in comparison to the investment of the previous three cycles." In 2006, the RNC gave nearly $5 million to the Ohio party. "To fortify our ground game" against an aggressive Democratic turnout drive this year, Mr. DeWine said Ohio Republicans need the full $1.1 million plus another $1 million.

In past elections, the RNC has provided major financial help to House and Senate campaigns. In 2006, it transferred $25 million each to the NRCC and its Senate counterpart. This cycle, it sent $2 million apiece to the two committees in early 2009 but nothing since.

In Mr. Steele's defense, he has made the most of a bad situation. His bus tour has not only highlighted opposition to Mrs. Pelosi, it has brought a Republican campaign presence to towns and cities that might otherwise have been ignored.

"If all my critics spent less time worrying about what Michael Steele is doing and more time worrying about how they're going to help Republicans win in November, we'd be well down the road" to winning the House and Senate, he told Fox News before the bus tour began on Sept. 15.

Mr. Steele has refused to say whether he'll seek a second two-year term as chairman. "I have one job requirement right now that's been given to me by the Republican Party and, I think, the American people, and that's to fire Nancy Pelosi," he told Fox. "And we're going to do everything we can to get that done."

This has required Mr. Steele to suppress his ego and be unavailable for television appearances. "We're not going to win a congressional race in Washington," says Doug Heye, the RNC communications director. "We need to take the election to the districts." Besides, Mr. Heye says, "it's a cheaper way of doing things."

Mr. Barnes is executive editor of the Weekly Standard and a commentator on Fox News Channel.

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